Xiaomi phones dominated the world of Android in 2016.

Antutu, a popular but not-so-good phone benchmarking app, has come out with a list of top phones in the world and various countries. The data is clear: if people who run Antutu on their phones are to be taken into account, Xiaomi's phones dominated the world of Android. In India, the Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 was the top phone of 2016, followed by the Redmi Note 2. On the third place, surprisingly, was the Asus ZenFone 2.

That is not all. There are more phones from Xiaomi in the list of top 10. The Mi 4C, The Mi 4, the Mi 4i and the Mi 5... all find a mention among the top phones in India according to Antutu data. From the high end phones, only the two appear in the top 10 list: OnePlus 3 at number 8 and the Samsung Galaxy 7 Edge at number 9.

Globally too Xiaomi seems to dominate the Antutu list. The Redmi Note 3 and the Mi 5 are occupy the top two positions in the global list while on the number 3 sits the Galaxy S7 Edge.

Although this is interesting data and shows the popularity of Xiaomi phones, it should be seen with in some context. The data represents only those phones on which Antutu has been installed and run. And given the fact that Antutu is a benchmark, it is usually run only by geeks and more tech savvy users. These are also the kind of users who are more likely to prefer a Xiaomi or OnePlus phone, given that these companies tend to target more tech savvy consumers by packing in a lot of good hardware in an affordable phone.The data also shows the smartphone divide that exists between the developing markets and the developed countries. In markets like India and China, Xiaomi dominates because of its affordable smartphones whereas in markets like the US, Germany, Hong Kong the market is ruled higher-end phones like Samsung's Galaxy S7 Edge.